The SUV pulled to a stop in front of the supply depot. Bravo glanced at the ramp that led to the garage underneath the building but several cars had been placed in the way to block the entrance.
The cars hadn't been rolled into place. They were pushed, shoved and beaten into the entrance. Warped and twisted metal of several vehicle clogged up the entrance. They were forced into place by brute strength. They wouldn't be easily moved.
"Should I circle around?" Bravo asked. "These depots usually have two points of access for the garages."
"Don't bother." Gerald replied. "It was blocked by the spawns who were following orders. If this one is blocked, the other will probably be the same. If not, it will be a trap with only one way in or out. Let's go through the front door."
Bravo killed the engine and flicked the switch to store the gun on the roof. Alpha dropped back into the SUV and secured the hatch before exiting the vehicle with the rest of the team. He left his briefcase in the car and took an assault rifle he had gotten from the police. His big gun would only be a liability in the small confines of the supply depot.
Gerald pulled out a pistol and knife as he started his casual walk towards the entrance while scanning his surroundings.
The thick bullet proof windows and doors to the supply depot had all be shattered and ripped out.
Dasher noticed that Gerald's pistol had a silencer on the end.
"Mr. Acers, is this a stealth mission."
"No, they already know we are here. Think of zombie rules, anything besides a head shot is useless. While it's true that enough bullets will kill the things before they can heal, we don't have an unlimited ammo supply. Don't waste hundreds of bullets on the body when a single one to the head will do the trick."
The others nodded before clicking off the safeties on their weapons and taking aim. The four people from the military shouldered their guns as they slightly fanned out and moved with quiet steps while Gerald sauntered forward.
*Crunch* *Crackle*
The broken glass was crushed under Gerald's shoes as he stepped into the building. He peered down the dark hallways while standing in the middle while Dasher and the others posted on the corners and carefully looked around the edges before moving forward while they took turns covering each other.
*Drip* *Drip* *Drip*
The sound of water dripping into a puddle could be heard from around the corner where a broken waterline in the ceiling had been damaged previously.
The group slowly navigated through several hallways until they came to a flight of stairs.
Dasher moved to the door while the three others moved up beside them. Once they were in position, they placed a hand on the back of the person in front of them.
When he was ready, Dasher nodded to Gerald.
Gerald was confident that nothing was on the other side of the door, but good habits came from practice and he wasn't going to criticize the soldiers for being safe. He opened the door and stepped back and turned around to make sure they weren't ambushed from behind.
Dasher moved in with his gun ready. He turned to the left and circled around the stairs going up while his weapon remained pointing ahead.
Alpha followed him in and went right, using his gun to aim down the flight of stairs that descended.
Bravo moved in after Alpha and went to the left and started to climb the stairs while Dasher covered him. He peered around the corner at the top of the stairs to see nothing of concern.
Charlie moved in and went right and down the stairs while Alpha covered her. She descended and looked around the corner to find the stairwell was empty.
She signaled to Alpha who singled to Dasher, who call Bravo back. The group remerged as the worked their way down the stairs to the lower level where the good stuff was stored.
Exiting the stairwell, they were faced with a blood scene. The wall, floors and ceiling were all painted with splotches of red, but not a single body remained. The signage on the wall was covered and unreadable. Gerald wiped it off.
The group took the left passage, the hallway where the most carnage had appeared.
Moving for another minute they came to a four-way intersection. The hall the left lead to a break room. Straight ahead lay the storage vault. To the right was the path to the garage. And behind them was the several offices and the stairwell.
Gerald held up his hand to call them to stop. He was thinking about what to do. It would take time to open the vault. The locking mechanism wouldn't open instantly, and the spawns may have even put things in the way to slow them down. The left was a dead end with nowhere to go. The right led to the garage where there may be a trap waiting. And behind them, if they moved that way, they would be going further from their goal.
"What's the situation?" Dasher asked.
"We are surrounded." Gerald answered.
The four didn't panic. This is where their military training and experience shown through. They stayed focused and waited for orders.
"Go to the vault. MOVE NOW!" Gerald shouted.
"REEEEEE!!!!!" Loud screeches echoed through the hallway.
A flurry of footsteps pounded from the four directions along with a clawing and grating sound. Spawns turned the corner and ran down the hall. Others clung and quickly crawled across the ceiling and walls.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
Dasher and Alpha lead the way as the moved at a near sprint. They opened fire on the creatures that exited the vault and ran towards them. Charlie and Bravo followed behind while aiming at the ceiling. Every time they let out a burst of bullets a vampire spawn would fall from the ceiling dead.
Gerald brought up the rear and walked backwards.
*Ping* *Ping* *Ping*
Every time he pulled the trigger his pistol would sing and a spawn's head would jerk back before the creature crumbled to the ground. He continued to walk backwards while stepping over unmoving bodies.
Alpha and Dasher reached the door to the vault after taking a few turns through the hallway. Charlie and Bravo turned around to give Gerald a hand as a horde of spawns came barreling towards the group.
"Damn it! It's stuck!" Dasher yelled.
"Let me." Alpha said as he took a step back.
A foreign but enjoyable feeling surged through his muscles as the man took advantage of the talent he had bought for the mission. He lowered his shoulder and charge forward.
"AHHHH!" Alpha let out a warriors roar as he ran forward and plowed into the door.
*Bang*
The three inch thick metal door started to bend.
Dasher turned around and started firing with the others. The spawns were clogging the hallways as the moved forward on all surfaces. They couldn't get a clean shot at the ones behind till the ones in front went down. By that time, the horde had moved a few feet closer. It wasn't a matter of being unable to kill the spawns. They were using each other as cover to move forward. Once the front line went down, the next line would have used their bodies to push the line a few feet forward. When the next set went down, those behind them would advance another few feet.
"Again!" Dasher yelled to Alpha.
"AHHHH!"
*Bang*
"AHHHH!"
*Bang*
"AHHHH!"
*Bang* *Snap*
Something broke behind the door and it flung open.
Seeing movement inside, Alpha pulled his side arm, but stopped when he saw two wounded police officers scurrying to the back of the room. He re-holstered, picked up his rifle and turned.
Gerald walked into the room while Bravo and Charlie crouched down in the doorway and unleashed their weapons. Dasher stood behind them and continued to open fire. Alpha moved next to him and started to put lead down range.
Gerald walked to the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. He stuck a key into it to unlock the cabinet and then twisted the handle and pull out the drawer.
Reaching inside he pulled out two hand-sized cylindrical objects. He stuffed one into his pocket before he pulled the pin on the other and chucked it down the hallway and into the horde of vampire spawns.
"Take cover!" He shouted before turning away from the door.
*BOOM*
The incendiary grenade ripped through the horde as liquid fire was splashed through the hallway.
The angry screeching from outside quickly turned into a panicked screech as the flames caught both the spawns and the corpses on fire.
The ones that were between the vault and the flames were cut down with bullets while the others backed off. The bright lights from the fire caused the spawns to retreat. The flames were too hot for them pass through without dying. The orders they received from their superior indicated that the flames wouldn't last for long. They would wait until they died down.
"Who… Who are you people?" One of the injured officers asked after witnessing the scene.
"Dasher, Bravo, hold the door. Charlie, First aid. Alpha, with me." Gerald said as he moved towards the door to the supply vault. He waved his phone and the vault began its unlocking procedure.
Charlie rushed to the two wounded officers. She pulled a pack off her back and began to pull items out. "Where are you two hurt? Show me your wounds."
One officer had a broken arm, but both of them were covered in multiple puncture wounds. They were bleeding slightly but the wounds weren't pouring.
Charlie panicked when she saw them. "How long ago did you receive these wounds."
"A week ago." One of the men wheezed. "Those monsters… they were keeping us with the others in the break room. Feeding on us when they got hungry. A week ago, we managed to escape. We were able to hold ourselves up in the vault room, but we were running out of food. I thought it was the end until you guys showed up. But the others… I… I don't know if they are still alive."
The other officer shook his head. "It doesn't matter. There is something much more powerful than those creatures among them. He is like them, but he has retained his humanity. He is even faster and stronger. You all shouldn't have come. You should leave as soon as you can. Forget about us, try to save yourselves if you can. I even put a bullet into the bastard's head but he still shrugged it off."
"Shh, just quiet down while I patch you up." Charlie told the man who spoke second with the broken arm. She could see that his words were affecting the man beside him.
"Boss, did you hear that?" Alpha whispered to Gerald. "It sounds like one of the elders is here."
"I don't think so." Gerald replied.
"But-."
"There are more types of vampires besides just spawns and elders. What the man spoke of was likely to be a vampire acolyte. If spawns are soldiers and the elders are the generals, then an acolyte would be a captain. They are people wo serve the elders and voluntarily had themselves turned. They were turned by the elder personally, where as when an acolyte turns people, he creates spawns. The spawns can only turn other spawns with the permission of an elder or acolyte."
"I don't want to think about people who are willing to abandoned their own race. But boss, are you sure it's not an elder?"
"You heard the man. Let me give you a nugget of knowledge. If he actually saw an elder, he wouldn't describe it as a creature that had retained its humanity. An elder vampire was never human to begin with. They are truly hellish creatures. A vampire acolyte is the most probable. Now get ready, we don't have much time left."
*Click*
The door to the supply vault swung open.